Now white people, you can't say niggaSo I gotta take it backNow black people, we're not niggasCause God made us better than that

An exploration of a taboo and yet ubiquitous racial epithet, “nigga”. The unwritten rule, as Lupe outlines, is that despite its prevalence, white people aren’t allowed to use the word “nigga” since it has devolved from “negro” during the slave trade to a pejorative term during the Civil Rights Movement through today. See our take on a recent flaring up this very issue in the rap world here

This hook is then almost sarcastic — ‘sorry white people, you can’t say this because it was never yours to begin with.’

Ironically, during his album listening party in NYC during September 2012, Lupe acknowledged that after the song was finished, he had a revelation while reading Baldwin in Paris. From Baldwin’s influence, this hook took on a new meaning for him, he thought it was perhaps hypocritical to say white people can’t say this word because, “after all they invented it”. Baldwin felt strongly that he was not a “nigger” (iteration of the word during his era) — it was instead a term created by white people because they needed the word for themselves. But that means the word is about or something for them.